Wisemen, Watchdogs
by Sterling Lee
Summary: Things remembered, things regretted, things hoped for: three holy men and the twisted patterns of light, dark, and divinity that surround them.


_Author's Note:_ I really couldn't say where this came from. I have a penchant for writing about characters with some kind of mental or spiritual instability; I like blurring the line between fact and fiction in my writing. There's not much info on the Barsburg Church, so I took the similarities with Roman Catholicism it already has and deepened them a little. Quite a bit of Part I is influenced by, of all things, the manga _Amatsuki_. If you've read it you'll pick up on the whole business about fate and futility easily enough. The rest is just extrapolation and the heavy-handed symbolism I have such a weakness for(the other motif I tried to fit in here shouldn't be hard to spot; tell me if you see it.)

* * *

I.

"_All happens according to the will of God,"_ the pope intones, face drawn half into darkness by his flowing mantle. _"In our battle against Verloren we are as God's instruments on Earth. Our triumph is the triumph of all that is right and good. We cannot fail."_ Something shifts in the sunlit room of Castor's memory: the pope is reaching out a hand. The bishop remembers how he bowed his head, down the corridors of years into the shining chambers of the pope, to accept the light touch of blessing. _"God be with you."_

Now the wind stirs his robes, billowing him back into the present. It is evening in God's Territory. Castor leans against the border of Razette's pool, listening as the church organ stirs to life. As always, she sings beautifully. Fest's eyes show him her voice a silken ribbon winding through the dusk; he imagines the trees stand straighter as it passes by. The melody drapes itself over his shoulders and warms him from within, each note seemingly placed for him and him only.

It is a small comfort set against the darkness of the day. Teito Klein's sanctuary was broken, and the sun has set, risen, and will now set again on a church that Frau and Teito have left behind.

A steady stream of wanderers moves towards the church; laborers and convicts, rich men and pilgrims—humans from all walks of life. As he watches, a lone man edges from the group, twisted and bent with age. He moves painfully toward the fountainhead where the bishop stands, and Castor recognizes him as one of those who live under the sanctuary of the Church. A contentious old man, eaten away by dementia and suffering and the weight of his many years. He will insist over and over to any clergyman he finds that their calling is nothing but a lie—there is no God.

Castor finds himself listening as the man unfolds his grievances like wares for sale in the market, holding each one to the light as proof that God is dead. He is close enough for the bishop the smell his sour breath. Filmy eyes struggle to focus as he outlines his tales, each one polished to a sickly shine. Castor regards him with detached pity. Even he can see the twisted sort of pride the old man holds in these stories, and he wonders if, in the absence of faith, this man has latched onto them as his only cherished belongings.

He listens serenely, looking nearly angelic himself in the fading glow of sunset. As the man begins to wheeze with the effort of talking for so long, he offers the same canned rebuttal meant for all nonbelievers: "I have seen miracles, so I believe."

Bile rises in his throat as he says the words, and he bites back the truth that is straining to be said. _I have seen miracles of chains. So I must believe._

He opens Fest's eyes at the man, watching the intertwined threads that cover his bony frame, snaring his limbs as he hobbles away down the path. They are all the connections, all the questions, all the answers he has ever made. Like chains, they bind his soul to the Chief of Heaven.

They are why Castor believes—because a dog must know the reality of the chain his master holds. All life is joined to Him. Fest, like all the Ghosts, has no freedom and no peace-as the watchmen of the Chief, they must take the roles handed them by Heaven.

Soft steps in the emptiness behind him. Castor turns around and into the eyes of Hakuren Oak, coming up the path into twilight. Hakuren, who is blessed with a talent for forgiveness. Hakuren, who is determined to stand as tall and proud as his surname suggests. Hakuren, who despite his embrace of the Church's lofty doctrine seems to Castor a very earthly being indeed.

The chain of Heaven keeps Castor from returning to his human life, but he finds immense comfort in the fact that his apprentice lives. True, Frau's Teito is a hidden king, host to powers both divine and damned, but in Hakuren is the future. . He has not yet learnt the pitfalls of belief, but when he does he will right himself and move onward stronger and kinder than before. He is no ghost—not holy but human. Human enough to make the world turn.

* * *

II.

The boy sits long hours poring over the marks on his skin, reading them as piously as a bishop over holy writ. They march like a legion across his body, testament to the advancement of a deadly disease. He has told no one, and for now they remain secretly under his clothes. He seems to all a happy, peaceful child, watching over his gardens with a tenderness beyond his years.

Yet fear stiffens his limbs, clutches at his chest, when he allows himself to think on death. It is the nature of the disease to bring it moment by moment, slow and inexorable. But he absolutely will not tell. Lem and Lirin would fear for him more than he does for himself, and he cannot wish that fear on them, his most beloved.

He flops down on his belly in the garden, pulling his wide sleeves over the marks on his arms. Forcing his mind to settle and empty, he gives himself over to the life of the garden. All of a sudden he is acutely aware of the movements of flowers in the breeze, sunlight glancing off the shining wings of a beetle, the wisp and flutter of a diving swallow's wings. The garden fills him as he breathes in, purer, cleaner, lighter, than before. It is a world unto itself, which fills him toe to tip and yet surrounds him at every turn…

Labrador wakes with an ache in his chest and the name _'Ilyusha'_ on his lips. The dark wet scent of soil tells him he has fallen asleep among the trees again, sprawled on his stomach, head pillowed in the roots of a slender birch. A hand extends to help him to his feet; his gaze travels up the white-clad arm and into the sheepish smile of Wida.

"Really, you shouldn't let yourself doze off in the bushes," the apprentice scolds lightly, looking as if he expects to pay for his forwardness. Labrador accepts the hand, Wida steadying him as he sways sleepily. "You could catch your death of cold."

After finding his footing, the bishop notices in amusement that Wida has one hand on his hip, the other extended in a _tut-tut_ gesture. The bishop has seen him scold his younger brother in the same motherly manner many times before.

Wida's smile has the soothing effects of chamomile tea, and as they walk through the garden Labrador feels his heartache begin to recede. He can tell himself he hardly minds when the apprentice asks "Who's Ilyusha?"

"Something I said in my sleep?"

"Yes, I-"

"It's all right," he says, more to himself than Wida. "It's no one you know."

Labrador's pale eyes rove over the gardens, stopping just short of the border where the trees and lawn give way to cobbled paths. Then, thinking of what lies outside, he brings his gaze back into the trees. The churchyard will be full of pilgrims, travelers, clergymen, and he has no wish to walk among them. Each time he does he must struggle to hold back the tide of words that rises in him, words of warning, of reproach, of condemnation. They surface as the twists and turns of each stranger's fate are laid out before him. He wants so badly to tell them what he sees, so that they me be spared some future unhappiness. But, ghostlike, he must pass on with no acknowledgement or greeting.

Even before he became known as Labrador, he thought it strange that only human souls passed their lives in pursuit of three wishes granted them by God. Child that he was, he saw the many plants as alive and soulful as any human being. It gave rise to a question he spent quiet moments turning over in his mind: what wishes in the heart of a flower? To bend under a spring rain? To bloom in a pot on a sunny windowsill? Perhaps to take root on a riverbank somewhere, where the summers are long and the winters mild. Would that he could want such simple things.

Labrador's outstretched hand brushes the stem of an asphodel in passing. A flower's world is small, just as his once was. Ilyusha lived the garden and nothing else, and he was happy. Now Profe speaks the future through his mouth, and he knows all the sadness of the wide world. Though he tries, he cannot hide from all that is beyond the garden; it is his business to bring the world into himself, paying special attention to all its suffering. As it is, his only selfishness is to tend the gardens. He does so only for himself, so that he may have, for a short time at least, his kingdom again.

* * *

III.

Frau leans to one side and the hawkzile follows, dropping into a steep turn. Teito clings to him, letting out a whoop of excitement as they dart through the trees. If he listens, he can just hear the beat of Teito's heart, young and urgent, as the stars blur by overhead. They are hidden by the forest and the deep night, and have long since shaken the soldiers of Barsburg from their trail.

They have fled the Church in pursuit of some darkling dream of Teito's, given him by that smiling, inscrutable man just beginning to claw his way up from beneath the boy's ruined memories. Even Frau cannot see the true depth of his apprentice's intentions, but he carries on dutifully, playing his role as Teito's guardian against the hungering dark that is the Barsburg Empire.

And during the times in between, he wrestles with his own vicious hunger. Under his skin the claws and teeth of Sichel are crawling, writhing, straining to break free. It is all he can do to beat them back into the buried place they were born from. When he closes his eyes he can see it: the forest of his mind. Strange beasts, hungry, mocking, move among the trees. They call to each other across the long distances, and they have the throats of wolves.

Some nights he cannot ignore them, and he finds himself heeding their cries to get out of bed, to stand looking up at the moon, their bright eyes shining out from behind his own. Nights like these, he wonders how much of what he does is at their bidding. How many times they were the ones peering out of his eyes as he moved through his life. There is no way to tell.

Teito looks to him for his salvation, but all he sees in himself is the cruel irony of their situation. Darkness within and darkness without; he must fight himself as well as the Empire for Teito's soul.

The drone of the hawkzile wanes as they come to the lip of a deep ravine. Its steep sides, carpeted with ferns, drop away out of sight. Somewhere at the bottom is a stream; the silvery noises of flowing water echo up from below. Frau guides them into the descent, bringing the hawkzile to rest where the land levels and bare trees reach up from the darkness. Behind him, Teito slips stiffly down from his seat, stumbling with fatigue but too proud to admit it. They do not speak, but Teito, in a rare unguarded moment, smiles gratefully at Frau as he lays out his bedroll.

That is the miracle about this child, Frau decides. Though he has been forced to fight and kill simply to move forward, and though he knows the impossible odds that confront them, though he has experienced firsthand all the cold unyielding malice that pursues them, still he smiles. He smiles in memory of brave Mikage, and to show off the joy he manages to find in the simplest of things. Though Frau is all fractures and razor edges Teito made a place for him in his heart anyway.

Times like these, Frau knows he is just a bit jealous of the man called "The Father". Teito speaks of him so reverently, with a light in his eyes and that slight smile that speaks of happy memories. He thinks of the way Bastien made him feel, and understands exactly what Teito is remembering. A time when he felt safe, accepted. Cherished.

He doesn't waste his time with wishful thinking-he could never be that person for his apprentice. He is at best a dysfunctional and grudging guardian, at worst a ticking time bomb. But beneath the bitterness and apprehension he feels, he knows he is willing to protect Teito for as long as he can. He will stand between him and danger, and _he will not be moved, _not for the Chief of Heaven or Heaven's chief deserter.


End file.
